Windows 10: Changing to a larger NVMe M.2 system drive on a Dell Inspiron 3671

Hello all! The 256GB system drive on this PC is getting a tad cramped, so I bought a 500GB Samsung 870 PRO NVMe M.2 drive to replace the 256GB one. As of yet, I have had no success using Samsung's Data Migration or Macrium Reflect Free in cloning the old drive to the new one, which is mounted in a USB 3.0 external drive case, after which I'd reinstall my apps and my data which is backed up to Acronis True Image 2021. I'd like to get this done soon, so I came up with another possible solution, but I need to ask the assembled masses if this will work.My understanding is that Win10 will not boot

:)

 

replacing C: with larger M.2 NVme drive and move programs installed on D: to the new M.2 drive

I have a DELL Desktop Computer XPS XPS8920-7581SLV-PUS Intel Core i7 7th Gen 7700 desktop running Windows 10 Pro with the Toshiba 250 GB M.2 NVme drive as the C: drive and a 1TB hard disk as the D: drive. I have installed a couple of games and applications to the D: drive due to the size of the install files.

I am now planning to replace the Toshiba 250 GB M.2 drive with a Samsung 500 GB 970 EVO M.2 NVme drive.

The procedure I plan to use is to:

• clone the Toshiba drive to a new Western Digital SSD installed in a hard disk bay
  
• replace the Toshiba with the Samsung
  
• clone the new SSD back to the Samsung
  

At that point I should have a bootable C: on the Samsung NVme drive.

The next step would be to move the games and applications from the 1TB hard disk to the Samsung NVme drive since I now have the space for them.

However it is not really possible to just move installed applications due to all the Registry changes that would be needed.

The two applications are Visual Studio 2015 and 2017 (both Community Edition) and the games are World of Warcraft, Destiny 2, and Fallout 4 (the last being a Steam download).

So I am looking for advice on these changes.

Alternative approaches

It seems that I have a couple of options:

• clone the 1TB hard disk to the new SSD and just use the new SSD as D:
  
• uninstall the games and applications then reinstall them to the new C:
  
• create a D: partition on the new NVme drive and copy the installation folders there
  

The easiest approach would seem to be to clone the 1TB drive to the new SSD as D: and move on. However I would be missing out on the NVme goodness with the games as well as the Visual Studio programming environment.

The most straightforward approach would be to uninstall the games and applications from the 1TB hard disk and then reinstall them to the C: drive.

The applications are Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017, both Community Edition. These would both be straightforward to uninstall from D: and reinstall to C:.

The games are World of Warcraft and Destiny 2 from Blizzard and Fallout 4 from Steam. These games will require long download time probably two or three days over my internet access. And I would have to start Fallout 4 all over again.

Concluding thoughts

Perhaps the best option would be to combine the first two options.

Since the Visual Studio uninstall and install would be fairly painless I could do that while leaving the games on the 1TB drive and then do the clone of the 1TB drive to the new SSD. Then at a later date I could move World of Warcraft and Destiny 2 over to the NVme drive.

I would think that working with Visual Studio would be easier and quicker from the NVme C: drive while the games would be quick and responsive enough if the game assets are on an SSD.

 

Recovery Media Creator on Dell Inspiron 3671 requires >16 GB USB flash drive

The instructions for creating a system image recovery USB drive using Microsoft's Recovery Media Creator on a Dell Inspiron 3671 desktop purchased December 2019 requires a 16GB USB flash drive. However, each time the process failed with the error message
""We can't create the recovery drive: A problem occured while creating the recovery drive". First, it would be nice if the error message explained the reason for the failure. After reading several posts by others experiencing
this same problem for years, one person suggested perhaps the new Windows 10 system on Dell computers require more than 16GB. So, I tried again with a 64GB USB flash drive and it worked successfully. I highly recommend Microsoft and Dell consider (1) explaining
the reason for the failure in the error message generated by the Recovery Media Creator software and (2) revise the instructions to require a 32GB USB flash drive.

 

Upgrade m.2 NVMe 256GB SSD to a larger m.2 NVMe SSD

This is what I am getting with my WD-Black m.2 SSDs

WD_Black 256GB SN720




WD_Black 1TB SN750




I see that a SN750 is the way to go.

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If I move my User folder to the D: drive I may have problems as there is a User folder there along with the User folder on C: drive. That could lead to a complicated mess.